Fountain Wall

About the Artist: Born in Corpus Christi, Texas, Jesus Moroles attended North Texas State University. Graduating in 1978, he entered the workshop of Luis Jimenez, Jr., where he worked until 1980. That year, the younger sculptor left for Italy; during a visit to the marble quarries in Carrara, Moroles was struck by the long tradition of marble carving in the Western tradition. The artist returned to Texas shortly thereafter, committed to working in stone. Looking to the work of Isamu Noguchi (1904-88) for inspiration, Moroles began using wedge-like tools to split stone: "I wanted to expose the true nature of the stone, so I decided not to carve it but tear it."

Moroles generally works on a colossal scale, transforming the landscape with large fragments of granite. During the renovation of the Ulrich Museum in 1994, the museum commissioned Moroles to execute three works for the entrance plaza underneath Joan Miro's Personnages Oiseaux, 1977-78: Granite Landscape, Granite Weaving, and Fountain Wall. The rose-colored Fredericksburg granite shows the characteristic torn edges of Moroles's work. All three works reference nature not only through their placement outdoors but also through aesthetic and thematic intent. Granite Landscape suggests terrain in its textured horizontality, and Granite Weaving reflects the surrounding sky and environment in its polished surfaces. Of the three, Fountain Wall comes the closest to representing the totality of nature. As water passes over the rippled stone, it picks up glints of sunlight, subtly referencing the earth, water, and sky in its combination of elements.

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